By way of background, it is standard practice to use aqueous gels as coupling agents for ultrasound producing/sensing devices in ultrasound imaging and therapy. A key element of an ultrasound gel is to have acoustic impedance similar to that of soft tissue.
Some ultrasound therapies and imaging are done intracavitarily or otherwise internally to a patient. For example, ultrasonic dental therapy or imaging devices require the patient to apply the gel intra-orally, however there is presently no ultrasonic gel product specifically approved and labelled for intra-oral applications available on the market. While there are existing non-ultrasonic intra-oral gels, the gels are still labelled as “not to be ingested”. The use of a gel with ultrasonic dental therapy or imaging devices requires the patient to apply the gel intra-orally, which can lead to ingestion of small quantities of gel.
There remains a need to provide products and methods, such as internally and orally compatible ultrasound gels, that can overcome the shortcomings of the prior art.